Scientists discover a piece of surprise asteroid that hit the Earth

The 2018 LA asteroid was snuck onto our planet and shattered in the Earth 's atmosphere on June 2nd. The asteroid has mainly burned, but a team of geoscientists has found a new fragment of the visitor's meteorite and now hopes to find out more.

The asteroid under the radar was only 6 feet (2 meters) wide and was spotted a few hours before it reached us. It exploded into a catchy fireball on Botswana in Africa.

The meteorological expert Peter Jenniskens with the SETI Institute and members of the Finnish Fireball Network monitoring the meteors have calculated the landing zone of possible fragments. They used security monitoring videos from the fireball to help refine the location.

Scientists from several institutions in Botswana searched the debris area in a protected playground for five days before finding the small piece of meteorite on June 23. The room is smaller than a keychain for a car. The team plans to continue looking for additional fragments

"This is the third time in history that an asteroid coming into contact with the Earth has been detected early and only the second time that fragments were recovered, "notes the University of Helsinki in Finland. in a Friday statement on the discovery.

The university says that the rare fragment will be studied for clues as to the origin of the asteroid. This knowledge could help us better track small, hard-to-detect space objects like 2018 LA that collide with the Earth.